ABOARD THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN PLANE - Florida Sen. Marco Rubio denied Saturday that he was comparing President Obama's policies to those of Cuba when he criticized the president at a campaign event for Mitt Romney. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, told supporters at a Pensacola, Fla., rally that Obama's recently released plan for a second term was a “picture book.” “Unfortunately there's nothing really innovative in that picture book,” he told the audience. “They're the ideas that have failed every time they've ever been tried.

November 7, 1991 | ALEXANDER COCKBURN, Alexander Cockburn writes for the Nation and other publications. and

The Democrats, buoyed by such omens as the victory of Harris Wofford in Tuesday's senatorial vote in Pennsylvania, think their time is come at last, surging in on the flood of economic discontent. The air is thickening with talk of a "new populism," of "looking after our own people" and the kindred rhetoric of Democratic candidates in primary season. The Republicans have good reason to be worried. Industrial production is flat after rising for three months, as is job growth.

August 25, 1986 | RON STONE, Ron Stone , a management consultant in West Hollywood , was the chairperson of the West Hollywood Incorporation Committee in 1983-84.

The recent change of boundaries for Los Angeles City Council districts has exposed a problem that is much larger than the current issue of minority representation. The problem is that so-called local government has become so big and unwieldy that nobody in the city has much say in local affairs. There is no way for any particular area to control any outcome at City Hall, even when the issue at stake affects only that neighborhood.

Re "12-Step Program for Recovering Democrats," by Guy Molyneux, Opinion, Dec. 4: There is much wisdom in Molyneux's advice to Democrats to admit that they have a problem, to stop defending the past and to take the long-term view. But there is also folly in his exhortations to continue to define the Democratic Party as the party of the middle class and the working people. Rather than thinking of themselves in bankrupt ideological terms, Democrats should redefine themselves as the party that has: The guts to drain the swamp of PACs and special interests in Washington.

Often the only way to tell whether government is doing the job that it is supposed to be doing is to examine the information that government produces about itself. But now the Reagan Administration is studying another proposal to limit public access to the information that the federal Establishment collects and disseminates. The draft directive has been distributed by the Office of Management and Budget to federal agencies to ask for their comments.

I almost fell out of my chair when I read "Migrant Groups Assail Plan to Cut Prenatal Care" (Feb. 6). Whatever happened to a gracious thank you from Magdalena Nevarez--an illegal immigrant, who bore three healthy children on our taxpayers' dime? The fact that she thinks "health care should be a right for everyone, whether you have papers or not," made my blood boil. I don't think I could go to Mexico and have my children free. Gov. Pete Wilson is right on cutting the 70,000 undocumented women statewide.

Re "The GOP discovers inequality," Opinion, Jan. 22 The usually insightful Doyle McManus describes how Republicans have begun to shift their message, if not their actual practices, toward acknowledgment of the bitter harvest of inequality. At the same time, he writes, the GOP is hardly ready to become the party of "big government. " Excuse me, but in the states and in Congress, the GOP has advocated for sticking government's fingers into women's bodies and into everybody's bedroom.

Re "DeLay to Stay Close to Political Action," April 5 Good riddance to Tom DeLay and his partisan, payola brand of politics. If he has provided any service to the American people, it's to have exposed the rampant corruption in American politics today. And he has done so outwardly and brazenly in selling Big Government outright to Big Business. His new mantra of striving to bring government and religion closer together would be hilarious if it weren't so scary. On its face, it sounds as potentially illegal as has been his performance and practice while in elected office.

Jean Askham of the League of Women Voters looks to a day when women will hold 50% of the seats in Congress and in state legislatures ("Orange County Voices," Aug. 25). To do this, they will have to win broad support by running on issues that command widespread interest. Two of today's noteworthy political leaders show how to do it. In New Jersey, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman ran on a promise to roll back tax increases pushed through by her predecessor, James Florio. She carried out her promise, cutting the state income tax by 30%. As a result, while still in her first term, she was already described as a suitable nominee for vice president.

Big government, the American Recreation Coalition, big business and lobbyists for lumber, ranching and mining companies are not only stealing your public lands but they are going to make you pay twice as much for it in federal taxes plus charging you to park on your land. Why don't they charge more for the resources they sell? A rancher can graze and water a cow and her calf on your land for about $1.50 a month. Can you feed and water your pet cat for that? The federal government must sell public land on which minerals are found to private corporations for $2.50 to $5 an acre, and under an 1872 mining law they are not required to pay any royalties.